


after the long goodbye

by NikitaHawkeye



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: F/M, Self-Sacrifice, based on the ending of gits: innocence, heavy themes of grief, sibyl!akane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:42:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26232103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikitaHawkeye/pseuds/NikitaHawkeye
Summary: How do you mourn someone who’s never really gone?Alternatively, the one where Kougami lives without Akane, one day at a time.
Relationships: Kougami Shinya/Tsunemori Akane
Comments: 7
Kudos: 56





	after the long goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> (Based on the ending scene of GitS: Innocence that absolutely ruined me.) 

She joins them in the end.

It was a burden that Akane chose to share with him, one that he first received with a wave of blinding outrage, then desperate denial, then finally, reluctant acceptance.

It's not like he lost her without a fight, though. Kougami deployed all the negotiating techniques he acquired over the years; he presented her with alternative solutions, challenged her decision according to merits and demerits, bargained with the cards he'd been dealt with, to no avail. He pushed and pulled hard, argued with all the air in his lungs, used all the means necessary to make her see reason. Reason that he himself didn't believe in because begrudgingly, he had to admit that her plan would indeed make the world a better place.

Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to tell her that the world could burn, as long as he had her by his side. 

He resorted to silent tears one final night, his arms wrapped around her tightly as if it would make all the difference. They stood together like that for what seemed like eternity, his tacit pleas hanging around them like gallows, all the things he deemed better left unsaid remained lodged in his throat, until eventually he had to let go.

"Take care of yourself." 

Her smiling face was the last thing he saw before she stepped into the set of staircases leading down the basement of Nona Tower.

—

He never told another soul.

That was her final wish, one he intended to keep until his dying breath. One he almost choked on as he watched her empty casket be lowered six feet into the ground.

Tsunemori Akane, killed in action. Daughter, friend, hero, the tombstone said.

Kougami almost set every object in his room on fire later that night.

—

Akane and death.

Two words he could never reconcile in his head.

Which, upon reflection, was probably why he could never take a single step towards moving on. There is no word for what she is right now, and thus, she will always be alive in his head. To him, she is, simply put, not dead. 

She is not dead, _and yet._

And yet the steel box that contained her belongings lay unopened underneath his bed, her voice mail no longer played back the the soft, apologetic tone of her voice for not being able to pick up the phone, her chair in Unit One's office occupied by some other faceless person whose name he could never remember, her ringing laughter no longer reverberated around the ramen shop in Myogadani that they used to frequent, her eyes—

Her eyes. 

He thinks of the last time he saw them, brimming with tears but firm with resolution. Her brown eyes, always honest and piercing and unflinching. 

And he would never see them again.

Kougami downs another bottle of beer, then smashes it against the head of the unlucky bastard who managed to piss him off exactly when he needed to hit something.

—

He lives one day at a time.

The bar fights ultimately ceased. The ever-present bruises on his fists eventually faded away. The rest of his self-destructive behavior gradually waned, one by one. 

Unfortunately, he did not come across this epiphany on his own. Gino literally had to beat some sense into him, his screams of anger shaking him up until he could no longer ignore the truth in his voice. 

_“She would not want this.”_

He woke up one morning, dragged his half-inebriated ass out of bed, gingerly took a shower, put on his uniform, and then stared at his reflection until he decided he’s finally ready for a new day. 

He arrived early in his office, which surprised the hell out of his boss and his colleagues. No one dared to ask a question when he turned on the news out of habit, one he hasn’t done in a while. 

The judiciary will be re-established. The status of latent criminals will be re-examined, and those who have been flagged as children will be released and monitored annually instead. Those whose crime coefficients rose because of questionable circumstances will undergo trials. In fact, the term “latent criminal” might soon become obsolete.

The Sibyl System stays, not as the mechanical, all-seeing god that it was before, but as a secondary decision-making tool that people still confer to every now and then. The truth that the system was made up of synchronized human brains did not shock mankind enough to shun it out of existence, it seems. 

It’s almost everything she would have wanted.

 _Still wanted,_ he quietly corrects himself. 

The news anchor’s voice droned in the background, and Kougami feels himself smile for the first time in a long time. 

— 

He sets his highest record of closed cases that month. 

He takes down the scums of the earth with an almost benevolent look on his face, as if he was finally fulfilling some sort of destiny.

Kougami never visits her grave, but everyone could tell that everything he did, he did as an offering to her name. 

— 

It wasn't always sunshine and rainbows, though. 

There are times when Kougami would stumble upon something that sets off a series of flashbacks involving her memory, and his world would stop momentarily, making him keel over and forget how to breathe for a few seconds to a few minutes.

Today it was, of all things, a hamburger mascot. 

During one of the MWPSB and SAD's joint investigations, he and Akane were paired off to pose as a couple of buyers for an entrapment operation, much to the amusement of their old teammates. It was in this same shopping district, and the two of them had a few hours to kill before they meet up with the targets. They briefly wandered around to grab a quick bite, and were eventually lured in by a hamburger mascot waving around outside a newly-opened American diner. 

She was still giggling when they sat down on their assigned booth.

"What's so funny?" He asked, the corners of his mouth lifted in amusement.

"You," she huffed, her hand attempting to smother another wave of laughter that threatened to come out of her mouth. 

"Me?" He replies in a faux offended tone, his mouth curving into a larger grin. 

"Yeah," she continues, "somehow I knew you'd get enticed by the hamburger mascot. You're kind of predictable that way, I think."

His mouth gapes open briefly, this time in slight mortification at this small revelation. "Not true. The interior looked cozy. The 50s diner aesthetic might have done it for me." 

"Really?" She taunted back, eyebrow raised in question. "Kougami-san... if one day you wake up as a hamburger, you'd eat yourself, won't you?"

He leaned against his palm, eyes on the ceiling, while pretending to be in deep thought. Then, he looked at her with a straight face. "I won't even hesitate."

Her laughter echoed in his head, and it wasn't until a running child bumped against his knee that he snapped back to reality. 

Kougami later demolished four training dummies in the gym. 

—

Akane lived and died in the name of justice.

He could argue the latter part, but chose not to dwell on it as his own life literally flashed before his eyes. The plaster wall did a good job of shielding his body from the flying shards of shrapnel, and Kougami hasn’t completely recovered from the blast yet when his eyes caught another hand grenade being tossed in his general direction. 

He cursed, then dove behind a different pillar right before his former cover was blown into smithereens. 

_Justice,_ these men also cried, but the photos of their loved ones that hung around their necks and the C4 explosives wrapped around their bodies tell a completely different story.

 _Justice, or revenge?_

There was a time when he, too, couldn’t tell the difference. 

If she were here, she would have talked these men down with her clear, honest eyes and unwavering conviction. Her infallible, almost kind logic had a way of tearing into people’s defenses, and he had no doubt that her ability has saved many lives, just like it saved his. She could have saved _them._

But these men have crossed the line hours ago, when they blew up the upper half of Nona Tower and killed hundreds of government employees in the process. As predicted, not everyone would accept the truth about Sibyl System without going into a rampage fueled by insanity and anger. These men lost their parents, spouses, and children because of Sibyl’s unjust oracles, and now they demand justice. 

_Justice,_ with their bombs and guns and climbing body count. 

And now, they’re on their way to the basement. 

The old Kougami would have honestly let them. 

—

The new Kougami, however, had the remaining piece of his soul sealed away in a glass box along with Tsunemori Akane's central nervous system. Said glass box is sitting in the same basement where they're all headed. 

Unfortunately, the new Kougami also lost two of his remaining back-ups earlier in the explosion, and he tried not to think of Gino and Sugou's unconscious bodies underneath the piles of rubble upstairs as he descended down the godforsaken staircase that seemed to be the witness of the worst moments of his life. 

Five armed men. Two remaining bullets. One in the magazine clip, one in the chamber. He's been in this business for too long, and he recognizes a losing fight immediately when he sees one. 

Well, it's hard _not_ to see it, even with his blood covering half of his face. 

His last two shots proved to be worthwhile, as two of them immediately went down as soon as he pulled the trigger. There's not much room for cover in this floor, and looting fallen inspectors and enforcers would be pointless, as none of them carried anything that would be useful to him at the moment. No ammo left, and with the nagging knowledge that he would soon pass out with blood loss or one of the four remaining bombers would find him soon, Kougami wonders how long until it's finally his turn to bite the dust—

A flicker of movement caught his periphery, and he turned to see a Dominator on the floor suddenly lighting up with its signature green glow...

...Except it's not supposed to do that when no one is holding it by the hand. 

He's not an idiot. It had been almost a decade since he last held a Dominator, but he still knew how the weapon worked. Green for recognized users, red for unrecognized, and none if it's idle. But the glowing green light on the grip persisted, and it was almost hypnotic that he didn't even realize he was already bending down to pick it up. 

The weapon whirred in his ears, and the almost forgotten interface showed up before his eyes, much to his surprise. 

"Kougami Shinya," the familiar feminine electronic voice spoke, "registered user."

He barely had time to process what just happened when one of the men showed up from out of the corner, charging at him with what seemed to be a pick axe. He aimed at the head out of habit, and the man went out like a light in a matter of seconds. 

The attack alerted the remaining two men of his location, and the next moments composed of a flurry of frantic punches and badly-aimed kicks. The Dominator obviously turned the odds in his favor, and Kougami finally emerged victorious in a bloody fight that ended with a blast of Destroy Decomposer, effectively erasing the existence of the last bomber without a physical trace. 

He dropped unceremoniously on the floor, uncaring about the cold marble against his back as he let out an exhausted sigh. He shut his eyelids tightly, struggling to stay conscious as he held the Dominator against his chest. He whispered, the hope in his voice almost making him sound small and pathetic.

"Akane?"

There was a long stretch of silence, and then a different voice answered his query. 

"It's been a while, Kougami-san. "

—

The familiar greeting burned a hole in his chest, right in the same spot where the Dominator rested. 

So many words he wanted to say, words that he used to rehearse in case an impossible reunion happens between the two of them, but nothing prepared him for this exact situation, where he's half-dead on the floor while surrounded with a dozen corpses, and her an incorporeal voice in his ear. Asking her how she is would be stupid, so he cuts to the chase by settling for honesty.

"It's good to hear your voice." 

It takes a beat before she answers. "Likewise. It's good to see you alive. You would not be for long, however, if you stay here without calling for help." 

The subtle nagging in her voice earned a smile from him, and he tries not to imagine her hunched figure crying on his bedside many years ago. "You can see me? Had I known, I would have dressed up better."

"I see you everywhere."

He pauses at the implication, and he lets another wave of silence stretch before speaking up again. 

"Are you happy with where you are? Everything turned out the way you planned them to be, after all."

"Happiness," she started, "is not a concept I am familiar with anymore. Although I would say I am at peace with where I am now."

He chuckled, nodding softly, and his hands gripped the weapon harder as if it would stop her from slipping away once again. The green light on the side faded in and out of sight, and not for the first time he wondered if this pattern was supposed to represent the beating of a heart.

 _Her_ beating heart. He decided he liked the idea of that. 

He shouldn't, though. As much as he would love to argue semantics with her, if only to hear her voice for a much longer time, he knew all good things would have to end soon. It did not stop him from asking, however. "Is this the last time, Akane?" 

For a long, terrifying moment, he thought, that was it, she left him again and this time, he didn't even get to say goodbye. But her disembodied voice resounded in his ears once more, and he thought of her scrunched eyebrows and pursed lips, the face she wore a million times everytime she fell into a deep thought, be it about a case or the meal she's going to have for dinner. 

His chest ached so, so bad. 

"Kougami Shinya, remember..."

He held his breath, heart dropping into his stomach as he somehow sensed the subtle notes of farewell in her words. 

"Everytime you administer justice, I will always be beside you."

The Dominator in his hand stopped glowing.


End file.
